


this is not a love story

by orphan_account



Category: Super Junior
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-04
Updated: 2012-08-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:57:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/477288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hankyung leaves. This is your life after life goes on. Heechul/Eunhyuk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this is not a love story

Heechul makes a list _things not to think about_

the phone calls he get from yunho that say nothing but occur too often to be accidental dialing, how old he is, how bad he is at dancing, hankyung

 

“It doesn’t have to, have to change anything,” Hankyung says, and Heechul hates the crystal clear reception because it’s mocking him, the lack of static and crackle, the smooth clean quality of the call is taunting him with the illusion that Hankyung could be just outside the door when in reality he’s so far away in ways distance can’t even touch.

“It doesn’t have to change anything between us, Heechul-ah,” and Heechul hates how his name in Hankyung’s accent makes his eyes prickle and something twists inside when he remembers he’ll never hear it again, not in the mornings when Heechul spits toothpaste on the mirror by accident and Hankyung bumps his shoulder or just before their encore after winning an award; he won’t ever sit in a dance practice room and steal Hankyung’s water bottle and shriek when Hankyung rubs sweat on him in retaliation.

“Okay,” he says, and maybe Hankyung says something like he’ll call again and maybe Heechul says _be healthy_ , or maybe just _don’t_ and then maybe Heechul sits on his bed with his phone next to him listening to the sounds of silence.

 

 

They meet up, once, and Hankyung pours him the expensive alcohol they never used to drink and puts dumplings on his plate and calls him _Heechul-ge, ah--hyung_ and they get drunk in his mothers shop, with the lights low and the blinds pulled down. They talk in circles, orbiting the topics of lawsuits and new singles and friends until they’re saying inane things between long silences and Heechul spins the bottle of soy sauce on the plastic tabletop like a top until he stands to leave or maybe to do something stupid, like kiss his best friend, but Hankyung kisses him first.

He tastes like ginger hot sauce and soup dumpling, and the kiss is almost chaste. When he pulls back they kind of look at each other, and Heechul has never seen Hankyung look so sad. There’s something twisting in Heechul’s lungs and diaphragm, working its way up his throat.

He moves to get his wallet off the floor and knocks the soy sauce over with a clatter, splashing a long curving line of dark black drops. Hankyung says not to worry about it, someone else will clean it up. Heechul feels a touch ill.

 

Hankyung hugs him in the car at the airport and his chest heaves against Heechul’s as he tries not to cry. Heechul hugs him tight and thinks he’s never missed Hankyung more than in this moment.

Eunhyuk gives him a ride home, offers to go out for lunch, invites Heechul to go out for drinks later with Minho. Heechul says he’s tired from the flight, and Eunhyuk creeps into his room while he naps and leaves boxed rice and vegetables on his desk for when he wakes.

 

The nice thing about being in a band of so many people is it’s never totally necessary for all of them to attend a function. Eleven people accepting an award is just as good as twelve is almost as many as thirteen.

 

 

Time passes differently, sometimes. Heechul sleeps in unless he has something to do, bothers his cats until they stalk away from him, and spends a lot of time looking at nothing. Mithra calls, and Yunho, and sometimes other people, but Heechul doesn’t like the way his voice sounds on the phone now, and it’s slightly hoarse sometimes from not using it much at all. He takes to chewing gum really loudly to break the quiet.

When he’s not in his room, he’s mostly the same he’s always been, and he likes that his personality is so strong it cannot be shaken by other things. He takes to drinking with Jungsu, in that they sip wine and talk about not being young anymore, how the stars have fallen out of their eyes. Siwon visits him, and Heechul finds that not being in his room is kind of nice, and he calls back all those people he’s been ignoring. They forgive him, and Heechul isn’t sure if it’s only because he is Kim Heechul and they expect it from him or if they’re going to get pissy about it later. He thinks he can always mention his crying rendition of Shining Star onstage to garner sympathy forgiveness later. He tells Jungsu this and likes the screeching laugh it produces. Even so, Jungsu hugs him a little longer before he leaves.

 _Sometimes I miss Youngwoon-ah,_ he says, and looks like he meant to say something else.

 

  
Heechul makes a list. _things to do_

work out more, teach heebum a trick, get a haircut, lose weight, tell jungsu it’s not his fault

 

 

“I’m worried about you, hyung,” Donghae says, and Heechul clucks his tongue at him. Donghae is in the kitchen cutting vegetables into long thin slices, and the rice bubbles gently on the stove, steam hissing from the gap between the lid and the pot. His fingers are confident and sure on the handle of the knife, and Heechul suddenly remembers the smell of burning ramen in pre-debut apartments, Donghae’s laughing shouts as he and Jay wave black smoke away from the detector and Kibum leaving and returning with cheap stained white styrofoam cartons from the greasy noodle cart across the street.

“It’s my job to worry about you,” he says, “I’m the hyung.” Donghae shrugs, and pulls the rice off the burner. The gas pops once and dies as he turns the stove off. He’s barefoot in sweatpants and a tank top, his hair curls gently, unstraightened. The ceiling fan whirs with steady clicks, and Heechul can hear the sounds of a neighbor watching a sports game. There’s afternoon light coming through the slats of the window shade, pure yellow sunshine falling in rectangles like prison bars on eggshell white plaster.

 

 

Sometimes it feels like nothing is quite real. The world is at once focused but foggy, leeched of colour but too bright and it takes longer for his fingers to understand what his brain is telling them. He finds himself sitting during breaks at dance practice, looking at the bullet blue sky backdrop and its fluffy white clouds, thinking he is dreaming until Siwon shakes him once, twice.

 

 

He wanders the dorms now at odd hours of the night, insomnia tearing at his mind when his body wants to rest. Sometimes he forgets what time it is, and where he’s going. Once he walks into a room thinking it is four, maybe five in the morning to find light streaming through the windows, an afternoon breeze ruffling the curtains. The room looks saturated, and his eyes feel heavy and dull.

“Zhou Mi says Hankyung has not even contacted him,” Sungmin is saying softly, and he and Eunhyuk turn, surprised.

“Hyung,” Eunhyuk says, and pauses. “Are you okay?” Heechul frowns.

“What are you doing up?” he asks, and his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. Sungmin is standing in front of him, but he didn’t see him stand. “Ah,” he says, “am I dreaming?” Sungmin takes his arm, ever so gently.

“Aish, Heenim,” Sungmin says softly, and now they’re in his room, and now he’s lying on his bed. “Why are you being like this. It’s enough, now.”

Heechul wakes up at his phone trilling from a teasing text from BoA, and it’s all fuzzy in his head, whispers and rounded-off edges, not quite real. 

He adds to his list, _don’t worry others_ and then to the other, _how hard it is to find peace_

 

 

“Yah,” he says, snagging Eunhyuk’s sunglasses off a table and ignoring his splutter, “yah Seasoning, let’s go.” Zhou Mi looks up from where he’s been memorizing lyrics, all long limbs, tight and tense and curled under his ballcap like a turtle in its shell.

“Hyung?” he asks, puzzled.

“Hyung!” Eunhyuk splutters, as Heechul sweeps imperiously out the door, Zhou Mi trailing behind, “When can I get my sunglasses back?”

“When I get my shirt back,” Heechul calls back carelessly, blowing through the glass doors, and laughs into the sunshine.

 

 

Zhou Mi likes to talk to the sales girls until the weariness of customer service and minimum wage slide off their faces. Sometimes they ask for a picture with him, sometimes an autograph, always he leaves with three times the normal amount of free samples.

“Have you met Jo Kwon yet?” Heechul asks, leaning against a perfume display as Zhou Mi sniffs each one delicately. “I think you would get along.” Zhou Mi smiles at him, in the middle of spraying apple melon on his left wrist, and his smile makes Heechul think of wide open spaces and schooltime daydreams.

Zhou Mi eats like a bird, chopsticks flitting from dish to dish, and tells Heechul a funny story about Henry and a French flight attendant.

“You don’t have to be happy all the time,” Heechul says suddenly, “company image is only company image.” Zhou Mi tilts his head at him and offers him the last piece of meat.

“You don’t have to be sad all the time, ge,” he says softly, “Heechul-ah, hwaiting,” and his accent is nearly close enough to Hankyung’s that it makes Heechul’s heart stutter, almost.

 

 

Heechul comes back to his room after a meeting with management about hosting radio shows in good spirits, right about until the time he swings into his room and finds Eunhyuk frozen with one hand in his closet. Heechul’s eyes narrow. Eunhyuk makes a small sound of terror in his throat. He fumbles whatever he was holding, and Heechul hears a soft woosh of fabric as it falls from his hand to the floor of the closet.

“What are you doing?” Heechul asks dangerously. Eunhyuk squares his shoulders and stiffens his spine.

“I want my sunglasses back,” he says. Heechul tosses them at him.

“They don’t fit my face right,” he says carelessly, and Eunhyuk looks mournful.

“I let Yesung wear them for a day,” he says sadly, and Heechul snorts with laughter. Eunhyuk grins at him, and they share a smile. Then Heechul glares again.

“Yah,” he says, walking swiftly over to his closet. Eunhyuk retreats so fast he trips over a shoe lying discarded on the floor and tumbles to the ground, looking surprised at his own clumsiness. Heechul stares at him, then continues sharply, “if I find you touching my clothes again, I—” he leans down, knees creaking, and picks up the shirt, still attached to a neon green plastic hanger. He stops short. The feeling of something rising twists and tears at his insides, from the bottom of his belly swelling up his throat like bile. There’s rustling behind him and Eunhyuk pulls himself to his feet and smoothes his clothes. Heechul tosses the shirt so it hits him in the face.

“Take it,” he says carelessly, “it’s not mine, must have got mixed up. I think it’s Sungmin’s.” Eunhyuk hums and leaves before Heechul can remember that Eunhyuk was touching all of his clothes and realize he’d re-organized his shoes by colour and style.

 

Later he hands the shirt to Sungmin with the explanation Heechul had given him. Sungmin blinks at him.

“This isn’t mine,” he says, puzzled, and tries to give it to Donghae who shakes his head and tosses it at Yesung.

“It’s Hankyung-hyung’s,” Ryeowook pipes up suddenly, and Yesung drops it, looking uneasy. They reach an unspoken agreement to avoid the issue for now, and troop into the kitchen, jostling over the boxes of takeout. The shirt lies untouched for another day, until Henry picks it up, smoothes it, folds it carefully at the seams and takes it with him.

 

Henry sits on his bed with it hanging over the door of his wardrobe when everyone else is out and makes fists with his hands until it hurts and the crescents feel like scars in his palms. The he kicks the shirt, an explosion of anger, and feels suddenly better. He kicks it again, and the wardrobe door creaks and a fine crack appears in the wood. His face feels wet and his head hurts, there’s tension all along his nose and his jaw.

“ _I hate you,_ ” he shouts at nothing, and keeps kicking until the door collapses and he slumps to the floor, breath hitching.

 

Heechul comes home and finds it on his bed in a crumple. It’s been washed until nothing remains except the smell of fabric softener and clinging static left over from cheap dryer sheets. He hangs it up on a hanger and pushes it behind the pants he never wears.

 

 

When Heechul faints, it’s much less dramatic than he hoped it would be. Mostly he imagined he would swoon and collapse and then heroically revive himself and go back to schedules, the quietly suffering protagonist. Instead he forgets to eat breakfast, stands up too fast at a rehearsal and Ryeowook of all people catches him as he crashes ungracefully to the floor.

When he wakes up, Donghae is cradling his head in his lap, Eunhyuk is in tears and Eeteuk is fanning him with half of Shindong’s hoodie. 

“Hyung,” Yesung says seriously, “we think you should talk to someone, a professional.”

“That’s interesting,” Heechul says, “I think I should eat something with sugar in it.”

“Heechul-ah,” Eeeteuk starts, but is cut off.

“Hyung,” Eunhyuk says, voice breaking, “Hyung, truthfully we want you to be well. When one is not well how can the group be well.” Kyuhyun hands Heechul a candy bar, and even his eyes are dark and worried. Heechul reaches for Siwon’s hand and pulls himself to his feet, feeling fine.

“I don’t even do anything,” he teases through a mouthful of chocolate wafer. Eunhyuk looks like he’s going to be the next one to pass out.

“Hyung!” he shouts angrily, “You can’t really sing and you’re one of the worst dancers I’ve ever met, but we would not exist without you.” He pauses, and opens his mouth to rephrase, looking panicked. “Wait,” he says, “uh.” Kyuhyun snorts suddenly, and turns away, his shoulders shaking. Sungmin giggles.

“Yaaaah,” Heechul says, “you’re not supposed to agree with me!” Donghae falls over backward, laughing his loudest shouting laugh, sputtering in his dialect, Ryeowook has both hands over his mouth, leaning on Yesung, Heechul and Eeteuk are shrieking in the way that they do. 

Eunhyuk can feel the floor vibrate with the force of them, and he thinks that even though it’s loud and annoying as anything, he really missed Heechul’s laugh.

 

 

Heechul is napping after a late night radio broadcast and is woken by the shifting of his mattress as someone curls next to him. He cracks an eye open, bleary, licking at his dry mouth, to see Donghae fling an arm onto his waist. 

“Hyung,” Donghae whispers, “hyung are you awake?” _No_ Heechul thinks, eyes already falling closed, and he can feel himself slip into the floaty, distant stage right before he falls asleep. “I miss you,” Donghae mumbles, and his breathing hitches before it syncs with Heechul’s and evens out.

 

When Heechul wakes the sheets next to him are cool, and he wanders out to find Donghae cutting yellow radishes and fake crab into thin cylinders. Siwon is rolling them in a sheet of rice and seaweed. The radio is on, playing something soft and low, and Donghae is swaying to the melody like dandelion seeds in the wind. Heechul drifts to them, and cuts the kimbap, timing each slice to the whisper of Donghae’s knife on the wooden cutting board and the gentle thumps of Siwon’s fingers as he presses the rolls. 

 

Heechul hugs them both when they leave and holds Donghae for an extra second.

“I love you, hyung,” Siwon says.

 

He adds to his list _be a better hyung_

 

 

Eunhyuk asks him to help him pick out eyeliner. Heechul tells him that if he hasn’t figured it out by now, he should go for another look. He helpfully suggests some kind of paper bag.

“I’m trying to change my style,” Eunhyuk says earnestly, and tugs on his short freshly dyed hair nervously, “I want to try brighter colours.” Heechul stares at him. “Ryeowook is busy,” Eunhyuk says, “please hyung.”

They get sidetracked in the eyeshadow lip gloss section and mangle sample tubes until the associate manager asks them for an autograph, and then to leave.

 

Heechul treats Eunhyuk to lunch at a ramen place in the mall, and laughs like a hyena when they get home and Eunhyuk realizes people were staring because he forgot to wash off the results of their fooling around, different colours haphazard on his face in a grotesque melody.

 

Pixelated photos taken with a cellphone camera surface in fan cafes. Eunhyuk decides he’ll stick with letting the stylists decide on his look. Sungmin declares Heechul is not allowed out with a dongsaeng unaccompanied for at least a week. 

 

 

Not that he would admit it under pain of death, but Heechul is kind of excited to be dancing with Super Junior again. When he stays late after practices and schedules for extra practice he gets friendly ribbing. Eunhyuk and Donghae come early to a session and find Heechul already waiting.

Eunhyuk opens his mouth to greet him and pauses. Heechul is always punctual but rarely chipper; today he has already started practicing, mumbling the beats to himself. Heechul has always had good memorization, but he’s awkward in his moving, self conscious, and off the beat.

“You’re doing it wrong,” he says without thinking, and then steps back as Heechul wheels around. Eunhyuk winces, and shuffles his feet. Heechul looks at him icily and sweeps out of the room. Donghae glares at him.

“How was I supposed to know?” he mutters, “It’s not like he cares anyway.” Donghae shoves him, hard.

“How can you say that,” he says, and there’s an angry flush in his cheeks. Eunhyuk stumbles, flustered.

“He doesn’t care about Super Junior,” he shouts, frustrated with Donghae, with Heechul, with himself, with Hankyung Kibum Kangin Junsu. “He’d rather be a radio mc or a show mc, he’d rather he left with--” Donghae hits him in the diaphragm in a full body tackle and they tumble to the ground, tussling, cursing. Eunhyuk is rolling over to pin him when Donghae shoves up with his feet and Eunhyuk slams into the practice mirrors. Pain slices through his right hand.

“Hyukjae!” Donghae says, and scrambles to his feet, pulls Eunhyuk up to look at his hand.

“Ow,” Eunhyuk says, surprised. There’s a shallow thin cut across the back of his hand, stinging sharply. The mirror is cracked into fine spiderwebs where his hand had struck it, cracks stretching upward like a sunrise.

 

Eunhyuk tells management he fell into it breakdancing. Donghae tells everyone else he punched it in a fit of manly sexually frustrated rage.

 

 

Eunhyuk invites Heechul to go karoaking, and they both drag Donghae along so it won’t be as awkward. Donghae bails on them twenty minutes into the outing, two minutes into Heechul’s tutorial on Kissing You. They don’t come back until the sun is painting the city in grey morning light.

Heechul adds to his list _be happy_

 

Heechul turns down a radio offer because it interferes with a Super Junior promotional activity. Eunhyuk smiles so widely during No Other Minho asks him later if he’s on drugs.

 

Hyukjae kisses like he dances to slow songs, to a smooth rhythm in a way that’s subtly mesmerizing. When he laughs his gums still show.

 

Heechul throws his lists away.

**Author's Note:**

> for diana


End file.
